Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

January 2 ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967
space program, Heather M. David reported in Technology Week.
Analysis of research reports had indicated that future Soviet missions
directed toward these objectives would include: (1) orbiting of three
or four cosmonauts for three weeks; (2) extensive practice of extra-
vehicular activity and assembly in orbit; (3) orbiting of animals to
continue studying effects of long-term weightlessness and radiation ;
and (4) lunar landing of animals for observation. David predicted
preparations for interplanetary travel would be initiated shortly after
establishment of permanent lunar colonies. (David, Tech Wk, 1/2/67,
18)
* The New York Times called for fuller and more open debate on cost and
consequences of SST program: “The SST’s priority is debatable and SO
is its financing. The industry may be right in asserting that the costs of
development are so huge that no company can afford to take the risk
on its own. It points out that the backing of both Britain and France has
been required to launch the Concorde. But if the combined efforts of
two countries and their aircraft industries are needed for that much
less ambitious project, the American SST might be more safely and
soundly developed if it commanded the combined resources of the entire
American industry and the Government.
“What is at stake is not the commitment to proceed with the SST. That
decision has been made and cannot-and should not-be reversed. But
if the SST is to be sound economically as well as technologically, the
Administration and the industry must be less secretive and indefinite
about the costs and how they are to be financed. An open debate is
needed on how to get the most for the taxpayers’ money.” (NYT,
1/2/67,18)
January 3: Group of NASA officials, headed by MSFC Director Dr. Wernher
von Braun, arrived at McMurdo Station in the Antarctic beginning 10-
day expedition to observe environmental conditions-including tem-
peratures, isolation factors, and survival techniques-for comparison
and possible application to problems of space flight. (MSC Roundup;
NYT, 1/4/67,10; Ap, W Post, 12/22/67, A21)
* Joseph J. Tymczyszyn, a senior FAA test pilot and chief of FAA’s West Coast
Supersonic Transport Development Field Office, had emerged as the
test pilot most likely to certify the SST, Mitchell Gordon disclosed in the
Wall Street Journal. Tymczyszyn, certifier of both the Boeing 707 and
the Douglas DC-8 jetliners for US. service, had already spent four years
familiarizing himself with SST operation, and had logged more than 1,000
hrs in SST simulators. (Gordon, WSJ, 1/3/67,1)
Philadelphia Inquirer praised success of U.S.S.R.’s Luna XI11 and urged
that U.S. continue its intensive lunar-landing program : “Space treaty
or no space treaty, the competitive moon race goes on and even though
nobody really likes the idea, the US. has to try to do better than the
SovietUnion’sLuna13. . . .
“No one can guess for certain what strategic role it [the moon] might
play if . . . the Soviet Union were to make technological advances that
would enable it to deny the use of space to the rest of the world.
“Luna 13 has chalked up a meaningful achievement for the Russian
space program. Americans should not be tempted to underrate it.” (P
Inq, 1/3/67)
Underground nuclear detonation conducted Dec. 3, 1966, by AEC for ARPA
had confirmed decoupling theory-that an underground explosion could
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